Last good movie watched: No End in Sight ... a documentary about post-war reconstruction in Iraq and what America's leaders really did. Gave an insight into the various organizations which were sent on a mission of post war reconstruction without any concrete plan. It was not shocking since I was not expecting anything better... but it left me wondering how can people who have been trusted with such huge responsibilities make such obvious wrong decisions.
Bourne Ultimatum..yeah I was waiting for the DVD. The home theater, recliner and blanket beats the movie hall anyday :) . The movie was of course, the best of the Bourne series. I think I want to see another sequel even though the next in series, The Bourne Legacy is not written by Ludlum.
Taare Zameen Par..the child is an amazing actor. Too many songs though.
Current favorite TV show: Writers' strike.. all re-runs...no time for TV either.
Experience of the week: Losing my purse which contained my wallet, glasses and camera on the night before New Year's eve in Vegas, followed by losing my iPhone ten minutes before midnight on New Years' eve in a casino :( :( Two blows were hard to handle! Consoled myself with "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas"
Currently reading: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Book review: Desirable daughters - boring.. very vain.. very upper class Bengali vain.
Best software used/website/blog visited recently: Woot.. one day, one sale.
One recent good deed: Donation of clothes for Christmas.
One pending to-do taken care of: Overcoming the dentist paranoia and getting the much needed fillings done. I was completely impressed with the facilities. Having a television overhead while the dentist worked on my mouth kept me distracted all the time. The shots felt like an ant bite. And to think that to avoid those I had procrastinated and caused further damage!! One thing I don't understand is why do dentists ask questions to the patient while working on his mouth?
What I missed most about India this week: Getting clothes tailored easily. It is so difficult to find a tailor here to do minor repairs and alterations. Back at home the tailor would even provide home service!
And so did the "dhobis" or laudry men. Every Sunday morning our neighbourhood dhobi would come home with a set of washed and ironed clothes, sheets and towels neatly bundled in a white sack created from a bed sheet. Mom had a small notebook to keep track of the clothes she had given the dhobi last week and the cost of the items. The lists were maintained chronologically with itemized entries with descriptions and prices listed on the right hand side... prices like two rupees for a shirt and four rupees for a bed sheet. I am sure she still maintains it. She would even bargain or send some clothes back if they were not well washed or had blue marks left over from the whitening solution. How I miss such privileges!!
Discoveries of the week:
The game Mafia...one of the best and most addictive party game I have ever played.
Learning from a Nigerian colleague that he loves watching Bollywood movies and has grown up watching movies like Mard and Disco Dancer!!
Something I noticed this week: The difference in the usage of some words here. The word hostel is used differently here. In a conversation with a colleague I happened to mention I lived in a hostel in Bangalore. He was completely taken aback like it was not a suitable boarding option. I had to explain that hostels in India are not low budget lodges for travelers!
In India, the word holiday is used for any vacation day really... like Sunday is a holiday. Here holidays are specific vacation days like Christmas is a holiday or July 4th.
Obsession of the week: Saying "Boring" the Homer Simpson way when A tries to explain things like directions or football rules and how to use his set of tools (drill bits and such) around the house or how to do an oil change for the car.
Thoughts of the week:
Experimental hair cuts and salons can be a better experience than a known stylist..simply because the expectations are low.
How do people who work at chocolate factories survive the over dosage of chocolate intoxication? A half an hour tour of Ethel's chocolate factory in Vegas left me choco-high for the rest of the trip :D
Scratch and dent sections are sometimes the best places to look for a deal. Found a wooden wine bar with storage cabinets for half the price since a minor screw was missing.
Holding a 7 day old new born of a close friend is a beautiful experience.
Will the "Tata Nano" really make the four-wheeler a middle class household norm? 2500 dollars is still a lot of money for them, I think.
Felt very strongly for Bhutto's death. An Oxford and Harvard educated woman who fought for women's rights in an Islamic nation and who risked her life to get the country back on track is the kind of person the world perhaps needs.
Understanding American sports is essential in the corporate world here. If I start now, will I ever catch up? Cos its not just recent games they talk about, they talk about football in as much details as we would talk about Sachin's desert storm in Sharjah or Jadeja's innings against Pakistan in the 1996 world cup.
Gambling is not the main attraction in Vegas! (So I had thought till my visit there).
Walking miles in high-heeled boots is not an art that many Indian girls like me have mastered. I even had to take vitamins to get rid of the footache and sleeping toes!
Did you know the beginning of the year sees a high increase in the number of health club/gym registrations owing to new year resolutions!
I wanted to end this post with my sharable new year resolutions. I am still trying hard to remember what they are .....
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
My life this week..
Current favorite song: "Paralyzer" by Finger Eleven
Last movie watched: Enchanted - I don't understand how it could have a rating of 8+ in IMDB. 8.0 puts it in the league of movies like Grapes of Wrath, Gone with the wind and Snatch and its definitely not up there. The problem is that with the number of online users on the rise, the newer movies are receiving more votes and a more wide range of voters. So now on I am going to do a mental subtraction of 0.5 for any new movie rating on IMDB.
Last bad movie watched: Dus Kahaniyan - almost every story was a rip off some internet forward, so silly!
Current favorite dish: Papdi Chaat from Cool Breeze. The reason why I like this so much is that it does not contain disk shaped, fixed number of papdis. Its made of small, rectangular, uncountable papdis providing multiple crunchy bites instead of the one-papdi-at-a-time bite.
Current favorite drink: Malibu with Pineapple Juice..s'weeeeeeeet!
Current favorite TV show: Aliens in America .. its a comedy about a Pakistani guy who visits USA as an exchange student, lives with an American family and goes to high school with the family's children. I always enjoy watching American high school based movies/shows just to be able to compare my Indian high school life to theirs. And with the south Asian guy in the picture, both the perspectives are brought out well.
Currently reading.. Desirable Daughters by Bharati Mukherjee .. so far so good.. very Bong
Experience of the week: I had this long list of calls to return that had been pending for some time. And like a fool I decided to do it on the eve of my birthday... and what else do you expect! Friend - "Oh, so are you calling to remind me that its your birthday tomorrow?"
Me- "Uh oh!"
The funniest part is that I actually did that once :) This was first year of Engineering. I was new to the school, new to the city, new people, new friends. So noone, of course, knew my birthday. And that time I was young and still wanted to celebrate birthdays. So a couple of days before my birthday, when some of my new friends/classmates were standing and chatting after a lab session, I started asking everyone's birth dates. Finally my turn came and again.... everyone exclaimed "Ohh!! Now we know why you ask!!" Things we do in teenage! sigh!
Best software used/website/blog visited recently: www.elfyourself.com
Check this out http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1162041402
One good deed of the week: Food charity for NC food drive. Emptied out all the stuff in our pantry that we hate eating but we thought we would eat to get on a healthy diet. Like granola bars and plain oat meal.
One pending to-do taken care of: Cleaning our garage!! Its not done yet, but we are getting there. And those who haven't seen our garage won't get why its a BIG deal!
What I missed most about India this week: The onset of winter... the quilts coming out of storage, lying on the terrace on a sunny afternoon in December eating oranges and reading one of the adventures of Feluda.
Obsession of the week: Playing the stock market
Discovery of the week: If the stock market was so easy to play everyone would be millionaires! But I like the excitement. A couple of days, I even checked my portfolio before checking email!
Something I noticed this week: Diversity and networking are very important terms in corporate America.
Thoughts of the week:
Birthdays are ordinary days post 25.
Birthdays are a good time to make excuses for not doing regular things.
Birthdays are not anymore wear-your-favorite-dress to work days.
Its important to do something special on your birthday since everyone asks what you did! Indirectly the pressure is always on the partner to make it memorable.
-------------------------------------
The oiling hair myth- So growing up in India every child learns from his/her mom that oiling your hair is as important as taking a bath. Without oil you could be struck with disasters like baldness, hot headedness and what not. My mom used to say "Maatha thanda raakhe" ("It keeps your head cool"). I could not imagine not oiling my hair with coconut oil poured from Shalimar tins (and later Parachute fancy plastic blue bottles) before my daily shower except on Sundays. Because Sundays were shampoo days and wear-your-favorite-dress days. As we grew up and peer pressure of looking good came into the picture, applying oil became a weekend ritual that could take place only during the night so that it could be washed off in the morning. That way we took care of our hair as well as didn't look like a "Chipku" (sticky) (if you have watched Indian television, you will remember the chipku ad where this school girl is called Chipku since she applies oil to her hair) . When I went to hostel, the frequency of oiling hair reduced from once a week to once in two weeks due to hectic schedules and the overhead of transferring oil onto the pillows while you slept at night. Finding extra towels in hostel is not easy! Down the years the frequency declined further and now its reduced to zero! Yeah, I never oil my hair!! I can't believe it myself that I could not have lived without oil at some time. In this country people don't oil their hair. It has to be a spa treatment or something as exclusive as that to have an oil head massage. People here who have never oiled their hair have not balded or are not really hot-headed. The quality of their hair is as good as ours. I look at the blonde kids here and try to imagine how they would look with oiled hair tied in plaits :) Its funny! Wonder what will happen when I have kids... will I tell them to keep their heads cool with coconut oil. Wishful thinking.. maybe I ll just end up keeping my head cool with oil then!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I hate the smell of smoke that gets into your hair and bag and clothes when you go to a club or sit in the smoking area in a restaurant.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Nothing can be more depressing than 80 degree F two weeks before Christmas. Why the hell should I be in this country if I can't even experience snow in winter! :(
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Organizing events here reminds me of organizing college fests in undergrad. Except then, we derived the ultimate pleasure of bunking classes and still getting attendance. Now it eats into our evening and weekend time too!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cosmopolitan is not a bad magazine after all, if you skip the sex-related articles (thats 40%) and the problems people face in their love lives sections (thats 30%) and the "where" to shop portions of whats trendy this season. Its actually a great magazine if you are single and rich and your life revolves around "Martini, Manolos and men" !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shopping online is like being at a mall all the time :)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last movie watched: Enchanted - I don't understand how it could have a rating of 8+ in IMDB. 8.0 puts it in the league of movies like Grapes of Wrath, Gone with the wind and Snatch and its definitely not up there. The problem is that with the number of online users on the rise, the newer movies are receiving more votes and a more wide range of voters. So now on I am going to do a mental subtraction of 0.5 for any new movie rating on IMDB.
Last bad movie watched: Dus Kahaniyan - almost every story was a rip off some internet forward, so silly!
Current favorite dish: Papdi Chaat from Cool Breeze. The reason why I like this so much is that it does not contain disk shaped, fixed number of papdis. Its made of small, rectangular, uncountable papdis providing multiple crunchy bites instead of the one-papdi-at-a-time bite.
Current favorite drink: Malibu with Pineapple Juice..s'weeeeeeeet!
Current favorite TV show: Aliens in America .. its a comedy about a Pakistani guy who visits USA as an exchange student, lives with an American family and goes to high school with the family's children. I always enjoy watching American high school based movies/shows just to be able to compare my Indian high school life to theirs. And with the south Asian guy in the picture, both the perspectives are brought out well.
Currently reading.. Desirable Daughters by Bharati Mukherjee .. so far so good.. very Bong
Experience of the week: I had this long list of calls to return that had been pending for some time. And like a fool I decided to do it on the eve of my birthday... and what else do you expect! Friend - "Oh, so are you calling to remind me that its your birthday tomorrow?"
Me- "Uh oh!"
The funniest part is that I actually did that once :) This was first year of Engineering. I was new to the school, new to the city, new people, new friends. So noone, of course, knew my birthday. And that time I was young and still wanted to celebrate birthdays. So a couple of days before my birthday, when some of my new friends/classmates were standing and chatting after a lab session, I started asking everyone's birth dates. Finally my turn came and again.... everyone exclaimed "Ohh!! Now we know why you ask!!" Things we do in teenage! sigh!
Best software used/website/blog visited recently: www.elfyourself.com
Check this out http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1162041402
One good deed of the week: Food charity for NC food drive. Emptied out all the stuff in our pantry that we hate eating but we thought we would eat to get on a healthy diet. Like granola bars and plain oat meal.
One pending to-do taken care of: Cleaning our garage!! Its not done yet, but we are getting there. And those who haven't seen our garage won't get why its a BIG deal!
What I missed most about India this week: The onset of winter... the quilts coming out of storage, lying on the terrace on a sunny afternoon in December eating oranges and reading one of the adventures of Feluda.
Obsession of the week: Playing the stock market
Discovery of the week: If the stock market was so easy to play everyone would be millionaires! But I like the excitement. A couple of days, I even checked my portfolio before checking email!
Something I noticed this week: Diversity and networking are very important terms in corporate America.
Thoughts of the week:
Birthdays are ordinary days post 25.
Birthdays are a good time to make excuses for not doing regular things.
Birthdays are not anymore wear-your-favorite-dress to work days.
Its important to do something special on your birthday since everyone asks what you did! Indirectly the pressure is always on the partner to make it memorable.
-------------------------------------
The oiling hair myth- So growing up in India every child learns from his/her mom that oiling your hair is as important as taking a bath. Without oil you could be struck with disasters like baldness, hot headedness and what not. My mom used to say "Maatha thanda raakhe" ("It keeps your head cool"). I could not imagine not oiling my hair with coconut oil poured from Shalimar tins (and later Parachute fancy plastic blue bottles) before my daily shower except on Sundays. Because Sundays were shampoo days and wear-your-favorite-dress days. As we grew up and peer pressure of looking good came into the picture, applying oil became a weekend ritual that could take place only during the night so that it could be washed off in the morning. That way we took care of our hair as well as didn't look like a "Chipku" (sticky) (if you have watched Indian television, you will remember the chipku ad where this school girl is called Chipku since she applies oil to her hair) . When I went to hostel, the frequency of oiling hair reduced from once a week to once in two weeks due to hectic schedules and the overhead of transferring oil onto the pillows while you slept at night. Finding extra towels in hostel is not easy! Down the years the frequency declined further and now its reduced to zero! Yeah, I never oil my hair!! I can't believe it myself that I could not have lived without oil at some time. In this country people don't oil their hair. It has to be a spa treatment or something as exclusive as that to have an oil head massage. People here who have never oiled their hair have not balded or are not really hot-headed. The quality of their hair is as good as ours. I look at the blonde kids here and try to imagine how they would look with oiled hair tied in plaits :) Its funny! Wonder what will happen when I have kids... will I tell them to keep their heads cool with coconut oil. Wishful thinking.. maybe I ll just end up keeping my head cool with oil then!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I hate the smell of smoke that gets into your hair and bag and clothes when you go to a club or sit in the smoking area in a restaurant.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Nothing can be more depressing than 80 degree F two weeks before Christmas. Why the hell should I be in this country if I can't even experience snow in winter! :(
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Organizing events here reminds me of organizing college fests in undergrad. Except then, we derived the ultimate pleasure of bunking classes and still getting attendance. Now it eats into our evening and weekend time too!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cosmopolitan is not a bad magazine after all, if you skip the sex-related articles (thats 40%) and the problems people face in their love lives sections (thats 30%) and the "where" to shop portions of whats trendy this season. Its actually a great magazine if you are single and rich and your life revolves around "Martini, Manolos and men" !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shopping online is like being at a mall all the time :)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Season changes, habit changes, this and that..
Its been forever since I wrote something other than code, emails and to-do lists. Everyday I have experiences that I feel are worth giving some thought to or noting down or sharing with. But time has been moving at break-neck speed. So this is what I decided. Every week, I will fill up somewhat of a template wherein I can capture some of my thoughtographs.
Current favorite song: "Wake up call" by Maroon5
Last good movie watched: American Gangster (I like true stories) and Maqbool (Irfaan Khan rocks)
Last bad movie watched: Dhamaal .... remember to have tylenol handy! I even rated it 1/10 on IMDB to bring its rating down from 6.8
Current favorite dish: Hersheys chocolate cream pie
Current favorite drink: Starbucks' cinnamon dolce latte
Current favorite TV show: America's next top model cycle 9.
Currently reading.. Life isn't all haa haa hee hee by Meera Syal .. Would love to see it in a movie.
Experience of the week: Spending two hours shopping for stuff worth 75 bucks since I wanted to use a 30 off 75 coupon.. then stood in a queue for 20 minutes to check out. When I reached the counter they said the coupon was not valid for items on clearance. So I went back and spent another 45 minutes and shopped again while A sat and played games and browsed on his phone. This time the queue was shorter but they said it was not valid on watches. Got fed up and did not buy anything!!
Best software used/website visited recently: zoho.com. :Liked the ability to chat while editing a live document and seeing everyone's updates to the sheet simultaneously. Loved the simplicity of maintaining a database online and creating forms to submit data and receive notifications with the least effort.
One good deed of the week: Teaching how to play snakes and ladder to a 4 year old cancer patient.
One pending to-do taken care of: Cleaning the study which had accumulated snail mail for months. I don't understand why they send so much snail mail in spite of having clicked on the Go Paperless button for every bill we pay. Shredding them is another big headache! Rescheduled the mailbox emptying to once a week instead of daily.
What I missed most about India this week: No snail mail! Bad postal service has its pros too!
Discovery of the week: Nerf gun :)
Thoughts of the week:
Perennial confusion of what biweekly means. Someone insisted biweekly meant once in two weeks. In my understanding biweekly meant twice a week. This is what merriam webster says:
2 : occurring every two weeks
It means both? !!
-------------
I never was a fan of tea or coffee, as in I like drinking them once in a while but not regularly or I am not the kind who would have a headache if I didn't have my evening cuppa tea. But recently I have been enjoying the whole idea of having a conversation over a cup of tea or coffee. It gives us an excuse to sit at the breakfast table and talk about something, anything. Chai with hot pakodas watching the rain outside, or masala chai with parle-g biscuits while chatting with girl friends, walking in winter in warm coats and gloves sipping a hot cappucinno, or a mug of strong coffee while checking mail early morning.... these have given me good enough reason to get addicted!
----------------
Change of seasons is so different here than in India. In fall, leaves really fall. In winter there is snow. In spring the leaves reappear. In summer you get tanned.
In India, in fall leaves don't fall, you could fall because of the rain wet roads. In winter you can get tanned. Spring ... what spring? Summer.. the only season!
---------------
Did not buy anymore free after rebate software this year .. the ones from the past years have moved from the study to the garage! And to think that we spend time on filling out rebate forms and mailing them out on time, tch tch!
----------------
How can anyone start their blog with "Dear Diary"? Isn't the meaning of a diary lost right then?
-------------------
Why do people ask questions like "How is married life treating you?" What do they really expect to hear? Its great except I didn't know men fart/women snore too. Its awful except I get to shop with someone else's credit card. Our choices don't match and I don't like his family and we already fight but we are a perfect match. I like the part of not having to return home in the morning anymore. Its as romantic as our first date. I don't know, its just a weird question, I feel.
-------------------
Why didn't my parents enforce waking up early when I was a child? Mom should have really poured water over me instead of just threatening to do so. I always used to keep snoozing the alarm clock till a point when, if I didn't get out, I would miss the school bus. Old habits die hard! Its all their fault for not teaching me to be an early riser. Like they say, to err is human, to blame it on someone else is divine :D
Current favorite song: "Wake up call" by Maroon5
Last good movie watched: American Gangster (I like true stories) and Maqbool (Irfaan Khan rocks)
Last bad movie watched: Dhamaal .... remember to have tylenol handy! I even rated it 1/10 on IMDB to bring its rating down from 6.8
Current favorite dish: Hersheys chocolate cream pie
Current favorite drink: Starbucks' cinnamon dolce latte
Current favorite TV show: America's next top model cycle 9.
Currently reading.. Life isn't all haa haa hee hee by Meera Syal .. Would love to see it in a movie.
Experience of the week: Spending two hours shopping for stuff worth 75 bucks since I wanted to use a 30 off 75 coupon.. then stood in a queue for 20 minutes to check out. When I reached the counter they said the coupon was not valid for items on clearance. So I went back and spent another 45 minutes and shopped again while A sat and played games and browsed on his phone. This time the queue was shorter but they said it was not valid on watches. Got fed up and did not buy anything!!
Best software used/website visited recently: zoho.com. :Liked the ability to chat while editing a live document and seeing everyone's updates to the sheet simultaneously. Loved the simplicity of maintaining a database online and creating forms to submit data and receive notifications with the least effort.
One good deed of the week: Teaching how to play snakes and ladder to a 4 year old cancer patient.
One pending to-do taken care of: Cleaning the study which had accumulated snail mail for months. I don't understand why they send so much snail mail in spite of having clicked on the Go Paperless button for every bill we pay. Shredding them is another big headache! Rescheduled the mailbox emptying to once a week instead of daily.
What I missed most about India this week: No snail mail! Bad postal service has its pros too!
Discovery of the week: Nerf gun :)
Thoughts of the week:
Perennial confusion of what biweekly means. Someone insisted biweekly meant once in two weeks. In my understanding biweekly meant twice a week. This is what merriam webster says:
- 1bi·week·ly
- Pronunciation:\(ˌ)bī-ˈwē-klē\
- Function:adjective
- Date:1832
2 : occurring every two weeks
It means both? !!
-------------
I never was a fan of tea or coffee, as in I like drinking them once in a while but not regularly or I am not the kind who would have a headache if I didn't have my evening cuppa tea. But recently I have been enjoying the whole idea of having a conversation over a cup of tea or coffee. It gives us an excuse to sit at the breakfast table and talk about something, anything. Chai with hot pakodas watching the rain outside, or masala chai with parle-g biscuits while chatting with girl friends, walking in winter in warm coats and gloves sipping a hot cappucinno, or a mug of strong coffee while checking mail early morning.... these have given me good enough reason to get addicted!
----------------
Change of seasons is so different here than in India. In fall, leaves really fall. In winter there is snow. In spring the leaves reappear. In summer you get tanned.
In India, in fall leaves don't fall, you could fall because of the rain wet roads. In winter you can get tanned. Spring ... what spring? Summer.. the only season!
---------------
Did not buy anymore free after rebate software this year .. the ones from the past years have moved from the study to the garage! And to think that we spend time on filling out rebate forms and mailing them out on time, tch tch!
----------------
How can anyone start their blog with "Dear Diary"? Isn't the meaning of a diary lost right then?
-------------------
Why do people ask questions like "How is married life treating you?" What do they really expect to hear? Its great except I didn't know men fart/women snore too. Its awful except I get to shop with someone else's credit card. Our choices don't match and I don't like his family and we already fight but we are a perfect match. I like the part of not having to return home in the morning anymore. Its as romantic as our first date. I don't know, its just a weird question, I feel.
-------------------
Why didn't my parents enforce waking up early when I was a child? Mom should have really poured water over me instead of just threatening to do so. I always used to keep snoozing the alarm clock till a point when, if I didn't get out, I would miss the school bus. Old habits die hard! Its all their fault for not teaching me to be an early riser. Like they say, to err is human, to blame it on someone else is divine :D
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